


Iron Enough To Make a Nail

by regshoe



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 21:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17553617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regshoe/pseuds/regshoe
Summary: Some scenes from the life of the Raven King.





	Iron Enough To Make a Nail

**Author's Note:**

> 'Magic is part of what a man is, just as flight is part of what a bird is.'  
> —Catherine of Winchester

_In the year 1110 something came to England the like of which was surely never seen before, and certainly has never been seen since. We often talk of the great men who have shaped history, but such a view is simply inadequate to describe what took place in that awful winter. Picture instead, perhaps, a great flock of ravens, more beautiful and more terrible than any bird of flesh and feathers alone ever was: a swirling storm of black wings sweeping downwards all across the northern counties and changing the very fabric of which England is made. Military conquest and political turning point it may have been, but something far stranger and—dare I say—of far greater import took place that January day on the fields of the Trent. English magic itself was given us; and we who received it can never hope to approach an understanding of the man, if man he was, who made it so._

(From an anonymously published history of English magic, 1803).

*

_Auberon stared in amazement and wonder at the sight before him. The King of Faerie had seen many marvellous displays of magic in his long life, and it was not often that he gave any of them—or, indeed, anything else—the compliment of such a reaction._

_At last he spoke, uncharacteristically hesitant at first, but soon warming to his subject._

_‘That your talent was never recognised before… Starling, if I did not know your history I could scarcely believe you were the child of Christians! Such remarkable skill must be rewarded. I shall see that you are properly trained in magic, and one day, I do not doubt, you shall have a kingdom from my own lands to rule as your own.’_

*

_William’s shaking hands found the edge of a table and gripped the rough wood as though holding on for his life. Never, never, never would he forget the sight of the young man’s bright brown eyes—eyes that he had seen before, grinning with easy confidence as Henry Barbatus rode up to joust at a tournament—set in a face broken and helpless and_ dead _… but it had been worse by far to see the face of the man who stood above him._

_‘I was wrong,’ he said aloud, though there was no one there to hear him. ‘To use magic for such a thing—only a damned fairy or a devil…’ And he broke down in tears._

* * *

Sunlight shone down from the high windows in steady rays, silently painting in brightness and shadow the polished wood of the floor, the tapestries that adorned the walls, the shelves with their neat rows of books. The little table where they sat was out of the direct light, but near enough to it to allow both the King himself and William to see clearly what he was doing. The room—a small chamber used by the record-keepers under William’s direction—was perfectly silent but for the scratching of the pen, regular and methodical, as the writer carefully copied the letters from the book lying open before him: _Pater noster, qui es in cælis, sanctificetur nomen tuum…_

‘There, you’re smudging the ink,’ said William, moving the King’s hand aside before his sleeve could trail further across the letters. He was not used to the restrictions of continuous left-to-right lines. ‘Hold your hand more like this,’ and he demonstrated.

‘Thank you,’ said the King. He adjusted the position of his hand and continued.

William had been a little surprised at the calm, steady patience with which he approached this new task, one which he had refused for so long and which came far less naturally to him than the magic on which he spent most of his time. But perhaps it was not so surprising, after all. He was not lacking in basic skill; he understood from his own script the relation of letters to speech and the motions of writing itself, so that he had only to learn a new alphabet and the system of writing it. And yet it was not simply a substitution of one system for another. Those other letters were, somehow, so much more in harmony with his character and thoughts than these. What strange magic might be hidden in them, William did not know (he had never learnt to read them). What it meant that their inventor was now condescending to learn simple human writing, he could only guess; he felt, vaguely, that there was something more in it than the practical need to understand and use his subjects’ writing.

There was, he reflected, plenty of time for such musings in this peaceful quietness, a welcome rest from his usual work. William turned his eyes back up to the window and the sunlight, and fell to daydreaming.

* * *

_High over the moor, against a black sky lit only by the distant stars, a deeper shadow passed. Had anyone been watching, they might have heard a thundering as of many horses’ hooves galloping into the distance, and the music of horns blowing—and been puzzled, for there were no horses to be seen, nor anyone who might blow a horn. The moor was without any road or track down which such creatures might pass, and they could not go unobserved if they did. However, if the observer knew the place well, they might have known what such signs meant, and then they would have turned away from those eerie sounds out of some other world and hurried homewards to the solid, comforting reality of a warm bed. No one would remain to see the stars seeming to shift above the hills, and the whole scene become, for a moment, no more substantial than the falling rain._

*

_‘Three hundred years he lived in England, and never married. What do you say to that?’_

_From the recent separation of Prince George and his wife, the talk had turned naturally to the romantic affairs of royals in general, and perhaps inevitably to one who, even in these late years, stood apart from all others in the minds of the English._

_‘Was it that long? Well, I suppose a king who lived for three hundred years wouldn’t need to worry about the succession very much.’_

_‘He left them without an heir in the end, though, didn’t he? And he never had a mistress, at least not one anyone knew about—what I mean to say is it’s not natural for a man to be so. Not human.’_

* * *

The scents of roast meats—beef, and swan, and for the grand centrepiece a wyvern from the Royal Forests of Faerie—filled the air, mingling with the sounds of conversation and laughter as they drifted up towards the high ceiling. For herself, Catherine was not overly fond of such elaborate fare. She preferred the simple foods she was used to eat in Winchester, finding that anything very rich tended to distract the body and mind from magic. Yet it was a great honour to have been invited to the King’s banquet.

Perhaps rather too much of an honour for some of the guests. She had noticed young Sir Hugh D— looking nervous earlier in the evening, and he appeared to have dealt with this nervousness by drinking quantities of wine and telling long, involved stories to the friends who sat around him. He was now in the middle of some tale about a witch who lived by the sea and enchanted men into doing her bidding, ‘and,’ he said, ‘even a king—a king—a king we know very well, I may say, once fell victim to her charms! I shall tell you of this witch, this Cornish witch…’

A wave of silence was spreading across the room, as though someone had cast a spell over the assembled nobles, fairies and magicians. Catherine realised the reason with a sense of sinking dread. Sir Hugh, who had entirely forgotten the company he was in, was repeating _that_ story.

Sir Hugh’s father whispered something to his son in a furious tone, while the other guests cast furtive glances towards the King to see how much he had noticed. Even Catherine was curious to see how he would respond, and she risked a glance. The King was staring at the young man with one eyebrow raised slightly.

‘Well, Sir Hugh,’ he said, after some moments, ‘I have heard something of the sort. It seems I shall have to be on my guard the next time I travel to Cornwall.’ And, as he took a careful sip of his wine, there was on his face something very like an amused smile.

Poor Sir Hugh had turned very red; the other guests looked from him to the King in undisguised shock. His friends, valiantly determined to save the situation, began talking loudly on some unrelated topic, and in a few minutes the general conversation had resumed; yet the mood was not what it had been before. Catherine was, perhaps, less surprised than most to hear the King joke about such a thing. She reflected, as the roast meats were replaced by equally ostentatious desserts, that he knew better than any how much power such stories—and the things in them—really had over him. And, after all, why should he not make jokes like any other man?

* * *

_At the far end of the table, Mr Edmondson was chilling the ladies’ blood with tales about the perils of Faerie, as related to him by his Durham parishioners. His opinion of the King’s affairs in other lands was decidedly negative._

_‘And what of his third kingdom?’ he said, when he had finished with the dangers and deceptions of fairy-magic. ‘Agrace, as it has been called. A land beyond the far side of Hell, and leased from the Devil himself, if we’re to believe the tales people still tell. A King of England consorting with Satan!’ He paused, casting suitably dramatic looks around at his listeners, and not failing to note the delighted horror on Miss Sophy’s face. ‘Be thankful, I say, that we have left such times behind us, those dark medieval days when superstition and ignorance reigned, and we were ruled by demons.’_

*

_…this is best exemplified, perhaps, by the curious piece of Northern folklore known as the Yorkshire Game, with the details of which my readers will doubtless be acquainted. Uskglass is treated as a sort of spirit haunting the dark places, who may appear in any suitable location within his old kingdom, and who must be appeased with the recitation of the correct words. The use of the familiar pronoun ‘thee’ (the everyday use of which survives in the dialect of Yorkshire), instead of the respectful ‘you’ which would be more appropriate in addressing a king, perhaps even suggests that he is seen rather as a god._

(From a paper published in one of the new magical journals, London, 1818).

* * *

Black Joan’s gang of thieves had been in York for two weeks, and had collected a good harvest of purses, pocket-watches and similar trinkets. Tomorrow they would move on; for now, their leader having left them to go on some errand, the children were playing amongst the ruins of St Leonard’s Hospital.

It was December, and the daylight, never very strong, was now fast fading. The lengthening shadows of the old stones had, perhaps, put the children in mind of eerie and otherworldly things; and telling scary stories took their minds off the biting cold. Sarah, pulling a thin shawl round her shoulders, had said to Johnny that she thought the ghosts of all the ancient paupers who had died in the hospital were surely hiding behind the stone columns of the crypt, ready to jump out at them. Then Alan had said something about the ghost of the Raven King, who haunts all such old ruins; and then the others, seeing the look on Johnny’s face as he peered into the darkness of the crypt, had said surely _he_ was not scared…

Now the others had all run away, and Johnny was alone. He had, however, no intention of giving up on his dare, and so he went further into the darkness. The vaulted ceiling closed over him, and the setting sun retreated far away; all he could see was shadow and still deeper shadow.

He placed his hand on the cold stone of the nearest column, as if to steady himself, and said, ‘I greet thee, lord, and bid thee welcome to my heart.’

Until now, Johnny had (though he would never have admitted it) been a little scared. But as soon as he spoke the words, he felt something change in the cold, ancient air around him. He saw nothing but the shadows; he felt nothing but the stone beneath his hand; the sounds of the city were far away; and yet there was someone there. It was a strange impression.

Johnny looked around. No one was there, but the darkness and the silence were not empty; the impression of some presence grew only stronger. He had forgotten his fear; he knew, somehow, that this was no terrifying ghost, but quite a commonplace sort of person, someone he could trust, someone who would comfort him in the cold and the dark.

There was no one there. Unless, in one of the deep shadows farthest from the distant sun, he saw a vague image as of a dark-haired man sitting on a chair of stone…

‘Johnny, come on, come out of there!’

‘Johnny, we’re going!’

The voices startled him; he had forgotten, for a moment, that there were such people as Alan or his mother on the earth. He turned to go, but stopped briefly to look behind him back into the darkness. Whatever ghost or vision might have been there was gone.


End file.
